The following article is published as a tribute to the work of Dr. Michael Harrison (affectionately known as 'Trammy Harry') of researching the history of Burnley's trams and buses.
A Brief History of Transport in Burnley
Written c1960 by the late Dr. Michael Harrison (1941 -
2000)
Up to the middle of the 18th century, Burnley remained a self-sufficing unit, expanding slowly and normally from village to market town, retaining its own characteristics - isolated, as it were, from the outside world. After 1750, and particularly after 1800, there was a complete break with the past, and with almost miraculous rapidity, a pleasant village with farmsteads, fields and woodlands was transformed into a rather ugly town, where lived a changed people, dwelling in crowded houses, working in mills, and living a life that somehow seemed debased when compared with the freer and more independent life of the early 18th century.
The road system was extended, improved and maintained, by the Turnpike Trust companies. By 1824, postcoaches were running between Skipton, Burnley and Manchester, varying from three to five a day, while in 1850, omnibuses, presumably horse drawn, ran three times a day between Burnley (Market Place) and Colne. At this time, a Richard Rothwell kept a stage carriage to travel between Bank Top and Manchester Road stations, some two miles in distance. Mr. Rothwell was Burnley's last stagecoach driver, and in 1852 he sold his coaches, wagons and horses. The turnpike Trusts gradually disappeared although the Burnley - Rochdale Trust was still in active existence in 1872.
A mail omnibus ran twice a day to Padiham & Colne - the unsuspecting forerunner of the electric tramway. For a Sunday outing a trip to Mitton, via Padiham and Whalley, might have been considered. The single fares were 1s. outside and 1s. 3d. inside. Shopping in Burnley was facilitated when Bracewell's began to run 'buses every hour from the Swan Inn in the town centre to Gannow and Barden Lane for 2d. each way. There were seven cab firms; double fares were charged between midnight and 5a.m. In 1874 all the cab firms, with the exception of Eastwood's, amalgamated to form 'The Burnley Carriage Company'. They promised, among other things, to provide 'clean cabs'.
In November 1879, the local newspapers advertised the formation of a company to promote a Bill in Parliament for the construction of tramlines and the running of steam trams between Nelson, Burnley and Padiham. The Company, which had its head office in London, was successful in raising most of its capital in Burnley, and after the scheme had received parliamentary sanction, began to lay down the track. Owing to the narrowness of the streets, the track was single with twelve passing loops, the gauge was standard, i.e. 4' 8 1/2''.The first trial run was made in August 1881, but the engine, a Kitson, broke down in Westgate and had to be hauled back by horses to the depot at Queensgate. The original fleet consisted of six engines and seven cars, the latter being built by Starbucks. On September 1st. the Board of trade Inspector toured the system and then refused to allow trams to run through the narrow Church Street but later withdrew his veto on condition that the maximum speed on this section did not exceed three miles per hour. Nelson had a service by the 17th. September and Padiham a week later. The following April the Kitsons were withdrawn as they were emitting too much smoke and steam and so horses were used until the delivery of the Falcon 'Loughborough' later that year. Then on the trial run, the new engine exploded!
The next few years saw part operation by horses and part by steam. At last, after disputes with the Corporation and more breakdowns, February 1885 saw a through steam tram service from Nelson to Padiham. The normal service was of a twenty minute frequency, the overall fare being 6d. Bell Punch tickets were used, 1d. brown, 2d. white, and the 3d. was blue for outward journeys from Burnley and red for inward journeys. Discount, contract and student tickets were also available, the directors having free passes. The maximum fleet was 17 engines and 16 cars, the original stock being serviceable at the close of the system.
Steam tram no 16 and car
no. 15. Pictured on Colne Road at Blacker St. (now Keswick Rd.)
It could be presumed that the vehicles were brand new because lettering had yet
to be applied, although there is a small advert for Brooke Bond Tea in the top
of the first left window. (Ed.)
In 1898, Burnley Corporation obtained an Act of Parliament which enabled them to take over and work the existing steam tramway but not double or electrify it. This right was never exercised and instead a further Act was obtained in 1900 which allowed the Corporation to purchase the tramway and rolling stock and so on, to relay a double track and to electrify. The Burnley and District Tramway Company was given £53,000 for the undertaking as a whole, a figure that was said at the time to be extremely fair. Other remarks at the time referred to fate in store for Corporations when their tramway plant required renewal - to prevent this the 1900 Act required that no payments should be made to relieve the rates until a reserve fund of £10,000 has been accumulated. The take-over was on 1st March, 1900 - on November 21st the following year the last steam tram ran. On the 27th. March, 1901 the engines and cars (in good working order) were offered for sale, together with one 'rail' truck, one permanent way truck, one horse trolley for the transport of engines, six miles of single track box rail, (55lbs. per yard and longitudinal sleepers) with a complete set of patterns, spare parts, working drawings, records, &c. The rails were stated to be nearly new.
The first electrics, number 1 & 4, were delivered to a temporary wooden depot, on the site of the present Palace theatre in the Centre, on 29th October, 1901; part of an order for 24 cars, they were open-toppers with vestibules and reversed stairways - the latter a feature of Burnley trams throughout their existence. They were 34 feet long, 6 feet 6 inches wide; the seating capacity was 70, 32 inside and 38 on top; tucks were Brill 4 foot wheelbase bogies with two 37hp GE 58 motors and B18 controllers.
The track was re-laid on the old foundations in parts to a gauge of 4' 0'' as there was hope at the time that connections might be made with the proposed Accrington and Rawtenstall electric tramways which in turn were to be joined up to the Blackburn system which was already operating. Together with other proposed schemes a large network was envisaged joining Whalley, Padiham, Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Accrington, Blackburn and Rawtenstall - the latter of course to join the Rochdale tramway at Bacup, and with proposed tramway to Ramsbottom and perhaps Bury, the South Lancashire layout could have been reached. Due to the opposition from the railways and the quibbling councils, Burnley remained isolated beyond Padiham and Colne, while the Darwen, Blackburn, Accrington and Rawtenstall network only connected with Rochdale trams at Bacup. Ramsbottom never got anywhere, trams never being operated; instead there was an isolated trackless trolley line about three miles in length. But that is really another story.
The track was completed and wired from Padiham to Burnley Centre by December, 1901 but the newly widened bridge at the Mitre was not completed for three or four more weeks. However the Corporation was not to be deterred as it recorded that on 2nd December a car seems to have moved out of the depot in the Centre, run to the bottom of Westgate, back through the Centre, to the Parish Church, and back to the depot, much to the amazement of the local yokels, few of whom had ever seen the like before. The first sort of official run was on the 4th, when a car ran up to the Mitre bridge and back. The public service started on 4th January, 1902 between the Centre and Padiham. After eight cars had been delivered to the Centre depot, the remainder were sent up to Queensgate where the original steam shed had been regauged and where the present sheds were being rapidly constructed. The whole line was electrified by 24th March, 1902 and it was opened formally by a civic procession on the 27th, using car no. 12. Road and bridge widening had been undertaken on a large scale, in fact little has been done on one time tam routes since the tracks were first laid as far as widening is concerned.
In 1903 dummy sides were fitted to one of the cars as an experiment: this was soon known as the "Windshield" top deck and it is believed that all cars were so fitted by the end of the year. It seems strange that the "job" was not "completed" by putting a roof on - if this had been done Burnley's cars would have been fully enclosed: however this was not to be so. The manager seemed to think that Burnley folk liked plenty of air, sunshine, . . . rain? . . . snow? - we must have been a lot hardier in those days.
From the beginning of the year work was proceeding along Accrington Road, laying tracks and erecting overhead out to the station at Rosegrove using poles that had been bought for the main line through Brierfield and Nelson where the Councils had objected to the Burnley coat of arms appearing on the base of each and every trampole. Water car no.1 was built during the year at the newly erected depot and works - this was to serve as the maid of all works: besides what we know as 'works car' duties, no.1 was used as a locomotive for pulling a goods wagon through the streets - a sort of low bogie bolster - on the parcels service that the corporation operated. 14 "Windshield" type double deckers were delivered from February onwards, nos.25-38, and these opened the new route to Rosegrove Station in July,1903. The workmen were transferred to the Manchester and Todmorden Roads and early the following year the water car was making trial runs over that route. In February 1904 a service was started between Romney Avenue, the Manchester Road terminus, the centre and Towneley, the Todmorden Road terminus at the gates of Burnley's biggest park and the Museum at Towneley Hall - the home of the Towneley family for hundreds of years until 1902. Due to a very low bridge under the canal on Yorkshire Street and the steepness of Manchester \Road, single deckers had to be bought: these were nos. 39-46 with Dick Kerr equipment on Brill 27G trucks, seating capacity 44. A slipper brake was fitted which had to be applied to the wheels before a car left the Manchester Road terminus, and only sufficient power had to be used to get the car on the move. The trouble with these cars was that they were so slow uphill that they just couldn't manage a five minute service. An attempt to overcome this difficulty was made by purchasing no. 47. It was somewhat shorter than the other cars and only seated 40, its distinguishing feature being its truck and noise. Made by Simpson and Park, this radical truck always announced its advent to waiting passenger in the Centre - hence its nickname "Screamer". While able to maintain the required five minute frequency, trouble arose on the half dozen or so curves and corners on the route, one of which was 90 degrees, in that the truck would not return to its normal position after the curve. This was rectified by an idea of a Mr. Whittaker of the Tramways Department whereby pony wheels were fitted to the inner ends of the truck, so producing what has been known ever since as the Burnley maximum traction truck. Its main advantage was that a larger percentage of the weight could be carried on the driving wheels than on any other truck on the market at that time. As many people know, Birmingham developed it a stage further and in its final form it had all the attachments and refinements of a modern truck
The purchase and experimenting on no.47 would appear to have taken place about 1909. In that year work started on a new line to Lane Head, leaving the main line at Duke Bar: the through service, Lane Head - Centre - Rosegrove Station commenced in September 1910 when an additional five double deckers were put into service. Numbered 48-52, they were built by Hurst Nelson, who would appear to have built all the new cars from this date onwards. These had to be the final type of top deck - full length roof with open balconies and from this date onwards all double deckers were once again rebuilt to conform with this new style.
Tramcar
52 outside the Commercial Inn at the Harle Syke boundary.
From about 1904 of thereabouts, a coloured light system was introduced on the trams whereby they bore a certain destination identification colour; the main line (Padiham - Nelson) used white, with Red for short workings to Park Lane; Manchester Road and Towneley used Pot Blue and Rosegrove and Lane Head used Green.
Following the housing expansion of the period, the tramways followed suit with a quarter mile extension from Rosegrove Station into Rosegrove itself, opened in October 1910, and in December a short extension on the Manchester Road line from Romney Avenue to the County Borough boundary at what is still known as the Summit, some 370 feet above the Centre and the highest point on the system.
Nos. 53-57 were purchased about this time, similar to no. 47, and on the Burnley bogies. In 1912 the Lane Head route was extended up the steep hill to Harle Syke and it was probably for this that nos. 58-67 were bought - open balcony double deckers. Trams that ran on this route were fitted with the slipper brake for the descent to Lane Head. Then came the first World War, followed by much track relaying and the purchase of the last passenger trams, nos. 68-72.
On December 23rd 1923, the roads were icy in the district. Tram no.10, one of the 1901 class, was ascending the hill to Harle Syke and was just on the crest about to change to an easier gradient, when a lorry skidded on the icy cobbles and hit the offside of the dash panel at the forward end of the car. The motorman tried frantically to apply the numerous brakes fitted to the car, none of them working at either end, most of the passengers scrambled off, the guard got the children off bar one. As it careered downhill no.10 hit a coal cart clean away and not unnaturally gathered speed and momentum: the track veered 60 degrees at Lane Head: no.10 left the line and ploughed into a shop. Chunks of the car were scattered into gardens, the decks separated and the equipment was spread around. The only remaining passenger, a young girl in her teens, was killed instantly, while the conductor died from his injuries on the way to hospital. It was indeed a black day for the BCT, made worse by the fact that it had all happened before, not only in the same place, but with the same car! The outcome of the second accident was that no.10 was completely rebuilt once more but this time it was renumbered 68 to avoid superstition, the single decker 68 became no.73, the highest number reached in the tram fleet. The 60 degree curve was straightened out and Lane Head had then seen its last tram accident.
Tramcar 68
pictured in St. James's St. Burnley centre.
1924 saw the beginning of the end for Burnley's trams, when five buses were delivered to start a route between Abel Street, Stoneyholme, the Centre and Towneley via Branch Road. Many new routes were opened up: most were failures, nearly all made a loss - but the trams made a profit and carried their unwilling burden. The title was changed to Burnley Corporation Tramways & Omnibuses. The worst bus routes for losses were dropped, such as those to Hapton and Higham but the thin end of the wedge was in. New housing estates sprang up, ideal for reserved tram tracks but no, they were without a service in several cases and people disliked having to walk to and from the trams.
A second locomotive was built at Queensgate in 1925, to cope with the increasing work then done by Loco. no.1. The final extension came in 1926/7, from the Wellington, by Turf Moor football ground, on the Towneley route, to Stroyan Street at the bottom of Brunshaw Hill, the steepest main road in Burnley. After heated debates in the Council chamber this scheme scraped through by one vote, demonstrating how the trams were slipping from the publics' favour. It was helped by the reconstruction of the diminutive hole called the Culvert under the canal in Yorkshire St. which was widened and hollowed out thus enabling double deckers to run through from Padiham and Rosegrove on match days. Connecting curves were laid in Gunsmith Lane thus enabling cars from Nelson and Harle Syke to go directly to Turf Moor.
The system was now at its fullest extent. The General Manager, Henry Mozley, who had been the boss right from the start with the steam trams, retired in March 1930 and died shortly afterwards. (See footnote) The system he had been so proud of was soon to be smashed apart.
The new manager was a Charles Stafford. For him, tramcars were the plague in the transport world and the complete extermination was the answer - never mind the capital that was tied up in the track, cables, poles and so on. The first double deck buses were ordered in 1931 - 14 AEC Regents with petrol engines and two Crossley Condor with diesel engines. The latter were withdrawn in 1936! These sixteen 48 seater vehicles came in 1932 - note that the capacity was only two-thirds that of a tram! The peculiar thing about our first scrapping was the time and place: in similar fashion to Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield last days in later years, trams were replaced by buses in the middle of the afternoon of Burnley's second busiest weekday - Monday market day! Following the conversion one presumes that about twenty trams were scrapped; one of these was rebuilt using the underframe and saloon to make an illuminated white ship "Victoria" to help raise funds for the hospitals in the area. At some other time a car was rebuilt in the shape of a gondola - Blackpool are way behind the times!
After much discussion in the area, it was agreed to form the Burnley, Colne & Nelson joint Transport Committee. The three fleets were to be combined, the three depots being retained with Queensgate as the main workshops. Burnley then had about 50 trams, Nelson about a dozen and Colne about a dozen. Both Nelson and Colne had more or less completely replaced their rolling stock after the first World War with vestibuled, open balcony double deckers on single trucks, though Colne had also bought two bogie cars similar to, but lower than, those running in Burnley. Colne had abandoned the Heifer Lane to Laneshawbridge and Trawden tram routes in 1926 and 1928 respectively, the latter having two sections of single reserved track - still visible today. The tram route Colne (Heifer Lane) to Barrowford and Higherford via Nelson Centre, was connected physically to the Burnley lines in Nelson Centre though Nelson and Colne cars never seem to have run through to Burnley and beyond in service. The B.C.T. and later the B.C.T & O advertised that 'through excursion cars are run as required between Burnley, Barrowford, Trawden and Laneshawbridge'. While this did happen occasionally, the first time BCN employees can remember today was at Easter, 1933 - and what an event it was to remember for sure! A service was to be run between Burnley Centre and Barrowford - when the 'big Burnley bogies' swung on to the Nelson rails, derailments are said to have been caused by horseshoe nails in the track: immediate action was taken by sweeping the rails clear to make the groove deeper for the bigger, better Burnley bogies.
(Later Note: Burnley cars ran regularly from Nelson depot in 1933/4)
The amalgamation took place on April 1st, 1933 when Stafford became General Manager of the combined fleets, with about 70 trams and a miscellaneous collection of buses, some 100, mainly of AEC and Leyland manufacture. The trams and Nelson and Colne buses had the appropriate symbol (B, C or N) suffixed to the fleet number, while the Burnley buses retained their own numbers and formed the basis of the fleet numbering scheme from 1933 onwards. Not unexpectedly Stafford told the new Committee that they should replace their tram with a titan (to quote an advert of the time) but Nelson wasn't having any such nonsense - why, they'd only replaced the whole fleet in 1920. But the majority vote prevailed and in January, 1934 with due ceremony the Mayor of Nelson drove the Last Tram from Nelson Centre to the depot in Charles Street . Various remarks appeared in the papers of the time, from people saying how glad they were that the bucking, unsafe monsters had at last been banished from the roads. For myself, although I have never seen a tram running in this district, I feel that I would probably have agreed with the latter remarks, as the trams may have only been 7 ft. wheelbase and I remember well the Glasgow Standards last February (1959), bucking vertically and transversely along the Great Western road, tearing out to Anniesland on top notch with a bus trying to overtake on the nearside (undertake?), and they were on 8ft. wheelbase!
On September 14th,1934 the Last Lift was photographed in the Queensgate depot, when double decker 66 was raised up on the tram jacks for the last time, and then taken out for a test run before returning to service.
One night a month later, on the 14th, a youngster living on Romney Avenue was allowed to stay up much later than usual for a unique and, to him, sad occasion. He walked down to the tram route just before a quarter to midnight, looked up to the Summit where the tram was at rest, and then listened to the swishing in the overhead as the car slowly went over the point, through the trolley reverser and set off for the Centre and Queensgate. No doubt there were few people about that night and perhaps the motorman waved to the young lad as he glided down past the Rose and Crown, picked up a couple of passengers, past the house where this article is being written, and so to depot. The next time Keith Terry went to town would be on a TD3 . . . That night the single deckers stopped running in Burnley on Manchester Road, to Towneley, and to Stroyan Street, Brunshaw. The estates at the top end of Manchester road got their service, but those living on Manchester Road itself soon learnt what 'bustitution' meant, out of 22 tram stops, the buses now stopped at 11.
The finale came the following year: the first of an order for thirty two 50 seat Leyland TD4's was delivered in February, 1935, but the main line continued operating for another few months. Of the 32 new buses, 28 were to replace trams, many then being 34 years old, while 4 others were to replace buses that had been in service for barely ten years!
On the evening of May 7th, 1935, tram number 63 left Burnley Centre at 11.15 p.m. for Padiham returning shortly before midnight to be met by a small group of people, mainly members of the BC&N committee, with the General, Assistant and Traffic Managers. Inspector Albert Heys was in charge, who first conducted in 1891, and there was a Mr. J. H. Jackson on board who rode on the first electric tram way back in 1901. As the Town Hall clock struck midnight, those present boarded no. 63 and to the hum of the motors and the swish of the overhead, Burnley's Last Tram disappeared into Church Street and ten minutes later into Queensgate depot for the last time.
And what has happened during the last 25 years? One thing is certain: the pride once held in the trams was never passed on to the buses - things have got that bad that until a couple of months ago there were buses running in Burnley that hadn't had a coat of paint since they were built in 1951. The colour scheme got lighter from 1934 when much of the maroon on the buses was changed to cream, now-a-days only the lower panels on the lower deck are maroon with a line under the top deck windows and a bit on the roof. The average bus will get a repaint every five years with a reasonably thorough rebuild in its tenth year. lining went completely by the board in 1954, destination screens have been replaced on all buses - surely the most ridiculous waste of public money - and they are only 7 inches deep, compared with to the 10 1/4 inches of those they replace, and naturally difficult to read.
The story goes that Mozley made an inspection of each car as it left the depot - if any dust was found, the car went back in the shed for cleaning. While this cannot be entirely true, Burnley folk had been proud of their cars, ever clean and tidy and in good condition. You were not allowed to drop your ticket or even put them in the used ticket box yourself - the conductor had to collect tickets as well as issue them! That is all in the past now.
And what of the 'capital'? The trampoles on the Rosegrove - Harle Syke route were lifted as were the rails, yet when large road works were undertaken a couple of years ago at the Mitre, the tie bars were still present. On Brunshaw Road, the track has gone, though many poles remain with electric lamps on them now. Yorkshire Street, Gunsmith Lane, Church Street and the Centre lost the track but kept the poles until recent and drastic road works removed everything from the earth's' surface including buildings. Manchester Road still has about half a mile of track buried under the asphalt: St. James Street has some buried and perhaps much of Padiham and Colne Roads the same. Poles are left in large numbers on the Colne, Manchester, Padiham and Todmorden Roads while there are no shortage of roses on buildings in the town centre. It appears that several of the poles were sold top Bradford where they still bear overhead wires. No Burnley trams are now known to exist, no. 43 was broken up in 1956 near Rimington and one of the two 'locos' finally disappeared last Easter from a site close to Turf Moor cricket field. It is thought that one or two bodies may still exist on the East coast in the Scarborough area in use as caravans this will be looked into before long. There are several Nelson and Colne bodies still left: a couple of 1903/5 vintage Nelson saloons in that area with Colne's no.9's top deck only half a mile from the depot and perhaps a Colne body in the Morecambe area - yet to be investigated. There is still a tram staircase leading into one of the pits at the Colne (lower) shed. The odd tram seat survives here and there, perhaps one day they may be in use again serving their proper purpose. For the local tram enthusiast, he could ride in splendour by real live bogie cars, by catching a Ribble bus from Burnley to the traffic lights on the Blackburn - Accrington road. He could then catch a Blackburn tram to Intack and then ride into town on East Lancashire's last tram route but even this enjoyment was cut short on September 3rd, 1949: and to the normal, sane Burnley inhabitant, the last tram went a long time ago, and is best forgotten.
(Authors Note: - The language of the above is a trifle revolutionary but I was only 19 when I wrote it! - - - Mike Harrison . . .14th May, 1973)
(Footnote: - Henry Mozley retired at the grand age of 75 in 1930 and although he moved away to South Cave, East Yorkshire where he died aged 87 in February, 1942. He is buried in Burnley Cemetery in the family plot.- Ed.)
A Matter of Experience - Dr. Michael Harrison